


Silly Human

by Leigh_B



Category: Blizzard - Fandom, Warcraft, WoW - Fandom, World of Warcraft
Genre: Adventure, Anthropology, F/M, Humor, Romance, Troll - Freeform, headcannon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-04-16 05:31:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4613055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leigh_B/pseuds/Leigh_B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby is lost, cursed, and wounded in the wilderness of the Stranglethorn Jungle. On the cusp of death, the young human huntress is discovered by two Horde counterparts much her senior in the ways of the woods. With overly sentimental and none too thought out reasoning, the two decide to take pity upon Abby. Inexplicably accepted and put to work in Shatterspear Vale, the home to one of the Horde members, Abby is given the most wondrous of opportunities. She's always been profoundly curious about trolls, and orcs, and tauren (Oh, my!), but is the satiation of curiosity enough to abandon her loved ones in order to belong to their people?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We Be Needing a Closer Look

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic is a lot of firsts for me. It is my first publication on Archive of Our Own, my first attempt at writing accents *wince*, my first WoW fanfiction, and also my first time using original characters that don't entirely belong to me. With permission and desperately needed blessings, MsMoon has allowed me to work with her character Yaviel Isilmiel. Thank you MsMoon. I am so glad we're friends. And thank you everyone reading this!!! I am so grateful, and I am also sorry for any mistakes.

 

“Nah, nah!” Ten’dajin’s bone charms clacked together as he heatedly shook his head. “Ya’ still be saying it wrong!”

  
The troll’s blood elf companion snorted derisively. Not slowing their quick and habitually quiet pace toward the dig site, Yaviel mimicked his accent as she switched from her clumsy Zandali back into the guttural tones of Orcish.

  
“Ya’ be teaching me wrong!” It was Ten’dajin’s turn to snort. The elf continued in a voice terse with the frustrations of a diligent student suffering under the thumb of a neglectful teacher; though, she did drop the hokey accent. “I’m not just going to get the pronunciation right on the first couple go’s. I need help with sentence structure and context. The accent will come later.”

  
“I be da’ one teaching, ya’ be da’ one learning. And ya’ be learning it wrong, Cat Elf.”

  
“Just telling me that I’m saying it the wrong way is not teaching me at all! I need you to move passed enunciation, and actually let me figure out some conversational dynamics of Zandali.”

  
Ten’dajin gave a snarly sort of growl in place of an immediate reply, baring his teeth to the nearby tree. “No! ‘dat is not da’ way I will teach ya’.” The troll’s gestures grew clipped, violent even, as he motioned to Yaviel, then back to himself. “Ya’ want to learn? Learn mah’ way!”

  
Scoffing, Yaviel begrudgingly accepted that her Zandali lesson of the day had ended on a particularly sour note. She would have been content to leave the frustrated air between the troll and herself, walking in a burdened silence that reeked of jungle and irascibility. However, she knew that Daj would ultimately think he’d won the discussion if she did not, somehow, give one last show of displeasure with the situation. This debate of altering Ten’dajin’s teaching methods to meet her progressing needs was an irritatingly repetitive source of conflict. Fortunately, the adroit elf had found a way to both portray her discontent, as well as diffuse some of the tenseness between the two of them.

  
Huffing out a sound similar to the rumbling growls of her own feline pet, the blood elf huntress thrust herself gracefully into the air, grasping for the tender hairs of the flaming red crest standing up high on the head of her gargantuan troll comrade. He had predicted her efforts, dodging out of the way simply by standing upright so as to folly Yaviel’s aim. She’d seen his tactic of avoidance coming, and so settled for using gravity and her own body weight to jerk the troll back into a slouch by his ear. Yavi had quickly learned that trolls communicated nonverbally much more than many peoples. Logical discussions would get her nowhere with Daj. The best way to diffuse the bullheaded stubbornness of this particular individual was to play at threatening his treasured mohawk and roughhousing a bit. It always garnered at least one rueful chuckle out of Daj, and the slight amount of pain that accompanied her actions usually communicated the lack of satisfaction she had with the final statements of this old and useless argument.

  
“Ai-ee-yah!” the troll halted with exaggerated sounds of pain while giving his head a slight shake. Playing along just as Yaviel knew he would.

  
She released his ear with a rough, downward, scratching tug. Surprised, as she had initially been after figuring out this odd and boisterous tactic of comradery, Yavi noted how leathery and strange the blue hide of her troll friend felt beneath her nails. It reminded her of trying to poke a thumb through an embossed cloak, and her nail bed gave a peculiar phantom ache as she imagined that her nail would likely bend before the thick pelt would give-way. A curt and expected bark of laughter burst from Ten’dajin as Yaviel rubbed her hand against her breeches, dispelling the strange sensation in her thumb.

  
A lighthearted glare was passed down from the troll as he rubbed at his large pointed ear. He took a breath, the intentions of his next statement clear in the easy pull of his grin, when his eyes sharpened. He closed his mouth and stood tall, cocking his head so as to direct his hearing elsewhere. Yavi spared a moment to concentrate her senses as well. It wasn’t rare to see Daj get overly eager about the sounds of an area that was known to have nonaffiliated tribes of trolls. For some reason, one that Yaviel didn’t particularly care to pursue, her friend seemed to take extreme pleasure in killing (what he called) “’Dem stupid trolls.”

  
The elf stilled her breathing, lending an ear in the direction Ten’dajin seemed to be focusing toward. There was nothing out of the ordinary that she could discern. Darcia, her saber-toothed black lion, was panting ever-so-slightly in the wet heat of Stranglethorn. He didn’t seem at all alarmed by the sudden stillness of the troll and his huntress. The reaction of her pet alone was enough to calm any suspicions Yaviel may have had about what could be nearby.

  
“There’s nothing-“ she began.

  
“Shh!” Ten’dajin waved a hand at the elf, not bothering to look and see the prickly expression that immediately overcame her face. Exhaling words that seemed to have no volume to them, Daj explained. “’Dat is da’ problem. Where be da’ sounds of mah’ Zwazo?”

  
Yaviel lifted a brow, biting back an acidic comment about the shushing. Ten’dajin cared for and trained his raptors as diligently as the next beastmaster looked after their pets. He, however, detested the idea of grafting his pet to his hip. Zwazo, specifically, was often off on her own scouting out territories and potential prey items. Yaviel had observed that Ten’dajin and his raptors communicated back and forth during their scouting trips with a series of barks and chirps. Obviously, Zwazo had failed to meet her chirping curfew. Daj shifted his body to the southeast, where he’d been concentrating, and lifted his head once more in order to release a few short and grunt-like caws. The calls hadn’t seemed loud enough to carry through the denseness of the jungle, but after about three or so minutes of tense silence, Zwazo answered.

  
Ten’dajin burst with a sudden exclamation. “Whoo-whee!” he jumped up high and clapped his hands together before landing with a bumbling thump. “Did ya’ hear ‘dat, Cat Elf?!” he smirked askance at Yavi after hunkering back into a typical slouch with childlike zeal dripping from his smirk.

  
“What? Your raptor remembering that she needed to report back?” Yaviel stated sardonically.

  
“Nah!” Daj wildly tossed his head back and forth, the collections of bone dangling from his left ear tolling once more before he dove into the jungle and began dashing toward the source of the raptor’s drawn out squawk. “Did ya’ hear mah’ Zwazo say ‘dat she done found us something good to eat?”

  
Yaviel huffed another feline grumble, shaking her head and adjusting her quiver before delving through the overgrowth after the troll. So long as the found meal didn’t consist of overly ripened fruit or a half-eaten waterlogged crocolisk, it would be an improvement over Zwazo’s last suggestions. The loping pace set by Ten’dajin soon brought the elf and the troll near enough to a small clearing that they caught the pungent odor wafting from therein.

  
“Oh!” Yaviel wrinkled her nose in distaste as the two of them slowed to a walk. “Something is late in the process of rotting.”

  
“Ya’ be right about ‘dat,” Daj scanned the brambly thicket that offered a thorny escape from the trees. “But I can’t tell what.”

  
Yaviel shrugged, glancing to the left and catching Darcia leaping over an exceptionally sharp tangle of shrubbery. “Knowing your raptor’s tastes,” she grimaced, “something very dead and very murloc-y.”

  
“My Zwazo is a fan of da’ fishier folk for supper…” Ten’dajin nodded, rubbing at the back of his neck. Still looking about the tangle of thorns in the clearing, Daj cawed a few more times in search of directions.

  
A peachy-yellow flash darted into view on the far side of the clearing, Zwazo’s color as overt and eye-catching as ever. She stared unblinkingly at her troll and the blood elf, offering them a casual series of chirps in greeting. Her few seconds of pause gone, the raptor shot back toward a raised spiny thicket. Her calls grew shrill the moment she was out of sight, and Dacia tensed. He lowered his body, becoming interested in the goings-on for the first time since this archeological expedition began.  
Yaviel suppressed winces as every step brought them closer to the source of the foul stench. It was no longer about discerning whether or not the scouted source of meat was fit for consumption, but rather, just figuring out what in the hell was back in that bramble. Yavi hadn’t ever smelled anything quite this…potent. The scent of rot was heavy and overly sweet, cloyingly sticking to her tongue and throat. It blocked out the smell of jungle, Darcia, and even Daj, leaving nothing but heady decay.

  
Zwazo’s back remained to the group as they walked around the spiked little wall. Her tail swished in a wide arch that Yaviel had learned to mean that she was overtly pleased with herself. Just as they rounded the corner, the raptor’s continued chatty trills were interrupted by a desperate, gravelly snarl.

  
“Alive?” Yavi blinked in surprise.

  
“Worg?” Daj pointed confusedly.

  
A moment was taken to assess the scene. Zwazo had indeed stumbled across something interesting, if nonedible. Closest to them was a puddle of something that seemed to have once been a troll. Random tufts of hair and skeletal structures projected from a strange bluish goop that served as the source of the putrid reek. Beyond that, in the farthest corner of the clearing, a gigantic canine loomed in a menacing crouch.

  
The jutting bottom fangs said worg, as did the tank-like build of the dog, but something wasn’t quite right. Upon further inspection, Yaviel noticed that the worg’s shoulders seemed particularly loaded because it was stooping very low over something a fraction of its own size. Yavi squinted, trying to make out the prize that the worg was so covetously guarding, when the amorphous lump beneath the dog hoarsely whimpered.

  
The worg whined back, flattening its ears and uncurling its lips for the slightest of moments. Then it thundered another warning, gnashing its teeth at two hunters and their pets while deepening the crouch over its master.

  
There was a gasp beside her, and Yaviel glimpsed inquisitively over at Ten’dajin. “A human?” Daj murmured in bewilderment, still pointing at the menacing animal.

  
“Injured, with a worg, nearer to a Horde camp than its own?” Yaviel scratched the back of her head, calling Darcia more toward her with a wave.

  
“I do believe,” Ten’dajin took a step forward, drawing the attention of the stressed canine. “We be needing a closer look…”


	2. Da' Human Be Dead?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I continue to apologize for the attempts at an accent.

Yaviel scowled over at the fidgeting knot of limbs and growls that had once been two entirely separate entities consisting of a troll and a worg. Having chosen to invest the time necessary for soothing the panicked canine by kneeling down and dedicating a solid five minutes to cooing pleasantries, Ten’dajin’s choice to pounce on the poor thing had more than rankled. Daj was now attempting to wrestle the dog into submission.

“Don’t you break that worg, Troll!” Yaviel ordered. “He wasn’t doing anything but looking after his master.”

“I won’t be hurting it none!” the troll chortled over his shoulder, securing his victory over the weakened animal.

Daj flopped onto his backside, pressing the spine of the worg into his chest. He quickly crossed his legs around the middle of the dog, subduing its hind quarters. One arm was then locked over the worg’s chest, weaving between its forelegs and leaving them useless. Lastly, and most importantly, one of the troll’s hands had managed to wrap around the muzzle of the canine. Its jaws were being held firmly closed.

“Da’ human be dead?” Daj inquired, giving the still squirming dog a bit of a shake as he nodded toward the wounded being.

The blood elf scoffed, glancing away from the spectacle that the troll had become and moving to crouch beside the huddle of blood, hair, and fabric that remained of the worg’s master. Cautiously, Yaviel reached down and felt through a tattered cloak for a shoulder, rolling the person onto its back. The action was met with no resistance, though it did draw another meager yelp of pain from the human.

A frightening, albeit muffled, roar of outrage snatched the elf’s attention away from the unconscious individual. The worg was struggling admirably in Ten’dajin’s restrictive grasp, growling and snarling all the while. Alarm, anger, and fear were clearly reflected in the animal’s brown eyes. Eyes that glared at Yaviel with a savage hatred that promised to rip the face off of anything that dared to draw that shrill wail out of its master ever again. Darcia huffed at the dog, baring his teeth and moving himself between Yavi and the jumble of troll and canine.

“Hey, hey now…” Ten’dajin crooned, using the hand not binding the dog’s muzzle to stroke at the pale fur of its chest and neck. His voice was a deep and hoarse rumble that reminded Yavi of an intentionally warmed alcoholic beverage. It seemed to calm the animal some. “Settle ya’self. We just be having a look.”

Yaviel focused once more on the human, pushing its tangled mass of greasy hair away from its face. She gasped soundlessly, shocked by the pallid, freckled, and beaten countenance that was exposed. “It’s just a girl,” the elf gave her head a subtle shake of dismay. “She’s...” Yaviel swallowed, suppressing the overwhelming amount of pity welling in her throat. “She is very young.”

Daj grunted, adjusting his legs to reward the quieting worg with a bit more breathing room. “She be dead, or headed ‘dat way?”

Yavi mumbled a negative response, noting that the girl was panting steadily through lips that had been gashed open by an unforgiving blow. The bruising and cuts about the human’s face were at all different stages of healing, indicating that she’d been assailed a few times. There was two week’s worth of damage, each attack some days apart. Her exposed abrasions were clearly accompanied by similar wounds peppered all about her malnourished form. Two injuries in particular, deep gouges to her outer right thigh, drew Yaviel’s attention. They appeared to be the source for the majority of the blood, still steadily seeping. These lacerations were freshest.

“She’s not much alive.” Yaviel responded with words, tentatively pressing at the human girl’s clammy discolored cheek.

“So…” Ten’dajin playfully mused, progressively allowing the behaving worg more freedom. “What’re we going tah’ do with her? Put her in a stew?”

The blood elf tightened her lips, extending a dry look over at the troll. “She’s half starved,” Yaviel sniffed. “I doubt she’d add anything but hair and stink to a soup at this point.”

Daj chuckled, fully releasing the dog and scooting backward away from him. An impish gleam of curiosity twinkled in the troll’s eyes as he took the time to carefully appraise the wolfish creature with his new proximity. The worg sat like a statue, head bowed, not sharing the happy inquisitiveness that the troll extended.

The dog darted his gaze between Ten’dajin, his raptor, and Yaviel, mostly ignoring Darcia. His ears were straight back and not pressed flat against his head, indicating that he was utterly displeased and ready to scrap should the need arise. This stressed silence went on for some time until, prompted by the lack of advancement made on the part of the dog, Daj made a few strangled sounding whines that poorly mimicked the earlier sounds of the worg. The dog glanced sharply at Daj, nostrils flaring with an offended expulsion of air. The animal’s snort drew an ornery grin from Ten’dajin. The wolf seemed calm enough, but Yaviel wondered if he wasn’t simply debating which of them to attack first.

Especially after that horrendous slur toward his vocalizations made by the troll…

These thoughts drew a shroud of irritation around the elf. If Daj had just stayed still and allowed her to convince the wolf that they were friends, she wouldn’t have to be debating whether or not the creature was waiting for a chance to snap. He’d made this situation twice as difficult as it needed to be, as per his protocol.

“Why’d you let him go after getting him all worked up?” Yavi inquired demurely, keeping her voice calm and pleasant while still prodding at different areas on the injured girl so as not to disturb the petrified canine.

“He’s not going to be doing much in ‘da way of biting, now ‘dat he knows who da’ boss be.”

Ten’dajin chose to demonstrate this point by reaching insouciantly for the worg. He snaked a strong arm around the creature, pulling him back into a bear hug and drawing an aggravated sigh out of Yaviel. The animal stiffened, glowering resentfully at the troll’s arm around his neck and seeming to bite back an obstinate growl. However, Daj seemed to be correct in that the animal did nothing to actively resist the hold that the troll had reinstated.

“Dogs be like ‘dat. After ya’ put ‘em in their place, ‘dey stay there.” Ten’dajin again released the canine.

Freed once more from the clutches of the troll, the worg chose to veer from his previous tactic of observation. Rather, he made a mad dash toward Yaviel and his human. Darcia snarled, displeased by the sudden lurch of the dog’s movements. In an instantaneous reaction to Darcia’s threat, the worg lowered himself to the ground, nearly coming to a full halt and curling back his lips to display sharp white fangs to the lion. A low rumbling growl resonated from deep in his chest as he continued to creep toward the elf and his human.

“Darcia!” Yaviel chided mildly, keeping a watchful eye on the intentions of the worg. On the one hand, if all he was trying to do was make his way back over to his master, then he need not be threatened. On the other, if he chose to sink his teeth into Yaviel, it would be the last decision he ever made.

Nearly crawling on his belly, ears pressed firmly against his skull in submission, and eyes glued to Yaviel’s lion, the worg finagled himself to the human’s side. He settled there exactly across from the elf. Before making any vocalizations or actions of affection, the animal speared Yavi with an intent look.

His eyes, which had appeared narrowed and flat in color while he’d been thrashing about in Ten’dajin’s arms, were wide, deep, and brightly intelligent. The brown of his irises was flecked with various shades of gold that concentrated into a ravishingly molten core around the very center of his eyes. A dark earthen brown color encircled his round black pupils while flaring delicate root-like tendrils out against the heady yellowed metallic of the center. Toward the outer rim of his eyes, before a thick inky black border ended the maelstrom of intense colors within his irises, a bronzy red clay pigment punctuated the roiling hue of the worg’s contemplation.

Yaviel cocked her head to one side, meeting the golden stare as if searching out a message within its liquid depths. Carefully, unlike the brazen rough contact of Ten’dajin, the elf extended her hand toward the canine. Not breaking his penetrating gaze from that of the blood elf’s, the wolf slowly extended his head until the bridge of his muzzle, the area between his nose and face, pressed against the outstretched palm of the elf.

This was not enough. Yavi wanted to be closer to his face. His eyes.

She leaned over the human, lifting her unengaged hand forward to stroke at the downy soft fur of the dog’s cheek with her thumb. He really was beautiful, with his massive form, luxurious multicolored hide, and wide golden eyes. They stayed that way for a moment, each enamored of the strangely comforting contact that joined them; and that’s when Yaviel knew. She would help this animal and his human.

Almost as if he could sense that her decision was made, the worg expelled a huff of warm air through his nostrils against her wrist. The animal shook his huge head in a gentle precise back and forth to remove himself of Yaviel’s touches before fully engaging all of his attention with the unconscious girl.

Lapping gently at the human’s face with a wide tongue, the canine released a series of desolate whines. He kissed at his human’s face once more before tucking his cold black nose into the crook of her neck and sliding it up behind her ear.

This drew a sudden and violent reaction, startling the hell outta’ both Yaviel and the wolf.

“Asha,” the girl slurred, heaving in a mighty breath and beginning to convulse. Her arm jerked in a crooked motion so that her hand could tangle in the worg’s dense fur. “My Asha!” she moaned the words in broken Darnassian, peaking yet more of Yaviel’s interest.

The animal let out a plaintive yelp in way of answering, and then showered her battered face with more licks and cuddles.

“Hum…” Yavi regarded the loyal pet and the bleak young huntress before her, trying to decide the best way to get the troll on board with her plan. Tact wasn’t necessarily something that Ten’dajin appreciated on a daily basis. There was no reason to start being diplomatic with the troll now.

“I want to help them,” Yaviel stated blatantly.

“What?!” Ten’dajin cawed, seemingly unmoved by the heartbreaking nature of the scene that had just played out before them. “Why ya’ wanting to do ‘dat? Humans just be trouble. ‘Dey always be trouble.”

“She’s just a girl,” Yaviel repeated her initial observation, “and she’s a hunter.”

“So what? She is a human and for da’ Alliance. ‘Dis could be a big problem for da’ lot of us.”

The blood elf pegged the troll with an incredulous expression. That had been a lame excuse, and they both knew it. Yaviel, Ten’dajin, and all other hunters understood that factions held less meaning in the wild. They’d both helped members of the Alliance at one point or another during their travels. Members of the Alliance in less need than the battered girl crying in a bleeding heap and weeping half-conscious into the ruff of her pet.

Her pet…

Pondering the way that Daj doted on his own beasties and the fact that this dog had won the pity of even the Cat Elf, Yaviel decided to try and appeal to the beastmaster within this pigheaded troll.

“What about the worg, Asha?” she questioned. Using what she had assumed to be his name caused the animal’s ears to perk. “Are you really just going to leave him here to watch his hunter writhe in severe pain while slowly dying? Look at him!” she pointed. “He doesn’t deserve that!”

Daj growled, staring over and meeting the sweet brown gaze of the dog. Asha seemed to have caught onto Yaviel’s plan, for all characteristics that had once seemed menacing about the creature completely and mysteriously vanished. His tail thumped out a steady rhythm against the ground, and his large triangular puffy ears weren’t firmly tucked back, but buoyed with one all the way up and the other half down in a cute floppy way that gave him an anticipative sort of look. His eyes had widened dramatically, becoming honey colored pools of genuine warmth, affection, and hope. He moaned pathetically (still holding Ten’dajin’s scowl) and made a display of nuzzling at the temple of his human.

“What is ‘dis?!” the troll shouted, stabbing an accusatory finger at the worg. “What is ‘dat face you making?”

An ardent whimper answered the troll’s outburst, followed by a chatty sounding yap and some colloquial yowls. A twang-y conversation of grunts, yaps, and howls ensued between the worg and the troll. Knowing that the dog could not possibly be communicating in an actual language made Yavi feel as though this pageant of sounds and gestures was just that: a show. She looked at Darcia, who was staring at the marvel of it all in mute confusion with a general air of distaste about him. The blood elf caught her pet’s eye and shrugged, not entirely convinced that the worg was making any headway with the troll.


	3. Do Humans Sweat Green?

“Careful!” Yaviel demanded with an amount of force that caused her smooth voice to become hoarse. The troll’s answer was to slump the injured human down on the ground as though she were a sack of grain. “We don’t know if or where she may be broken!” the blood elf hissed, further chafed by Ten’dajin’s lack of effort. 

Daj glanced disdainfully down at the human female that he’d nearly dashed against some unfortunately pointed rocks. He offered Yaviel a raspy grunt in response to her ardent orders.

Daj’s peevishness was no longer directed at the existence of the incapacitated human female, nor at the physical labor of carrying her. The troll was far too petty to still have inconsequential concepts such as those stuck in his craw. He was being irritable for a far less worthy reason. 

The troll was mad that the blood elf had been correct in an argument they’d had pertaining to the moving of the human. 

The two had bickered for a solid five minutes before he finally relented to the request of carrying the girl back to the little camp they’d set up beside a spring fed pool. Yaviel had been irksomely right in the end. The girl weighed nothing to him, but would have slowed the elf or any of the three pets exponentially. Especially with the human’s worg limping so severely, now that the adrenaline of romping about with a troll had faded. 

Daj glanced up to double check the extensions of light that eked lazily through the jungle’s canopy. Much to his chagrin, some hasty measurements affirmed his ego’s qualms. They’d made it back to camp with over an hour of sunlight to spare, precisely as the Cat Elf had predicted. 

Dammit.

Yaviel, who assumed that Ten’dajin’s negativity still stemmed from the existence of the human, chose to disregard him until he could be of further use. There was no way to determine the full extent of the girl’s injuries, nor to rid the scrawny creature of that horridly rotten stench, without removing her clothes and giving her a proper bath. Rooting through one of her bags for a bar of soap and a comb, Yavi tried to determine the best way to get the girl into the spring. Settling on the idea of crossing that bridge when she came to it, the elf began to maneuver the unconscious girl as gently as possible. When the human was propped against a large dull rock in an upright sitting position, Yaviel set to work against her leather gear. 

The stitching was damn fine, the leather hearty and expensive. Yavi wondered where the human had managed to get such nice gear, as well as how to get her out of it. The leather clothing had no cloth under it, at least as far as the girl’s upper half. The remains of what was once her linen undershirt wrapped various wounds on her body, displaying the obvious cause for its absence on her torso. Because her skin had been against the straight leather for who knows how long, it had somehow fused with the stagnant remains of her blood and sweat to form a sort of glue against her bareness. Even with the seaming laces untied, the gear did not so much as loosen from her body.

“Crap,” Yaviel grumbled irritably as she attempted to wiggle her slim hand inside of the vest. She stifled potential gagging behind a baring of teeth as the stench of rot and body odor wafted up from the small human. The girl’s gear didn’t budge.

“So much for that damn fine stitching…” Yavi gave a plaintive sigh as she pulled a dagger from the holster on her belt and began carefully slicing through the elegant and sturdy crosses of thread. Knowing that she had some extra linen layers in her bag, the blood elf didn’t waste any time before moving down to cut the uniform stitching on the side of the girl’s pants. They were already full of holes anyhow, so no reason to lament having to tear the tattered breeches apart.

The girl was missing her left boot, so Yavi simply peeled the remaining shoe from her right leg. Delighted to see that the girl had both a right sock and linen trousers beneath her leathers, Yaviel paused in her actions. The blood elf didn’t want to completely undress the girl until she was seconds from bringing her to the water, and so again began to contemplate the stream. Which led her back to thinking of the unnatural cling between the human and her leather top. Steeling herself against the coming onslaught of foul odor, Yavi began to pull at the vest again. She was once more unsuccessful. The stubborn nature of the leather started to really aggravate the elf. 

She pulled harder, forcing her nails between the human’s skin and the vest. It did little good. She began to jerk, accidentally pulling too hard and slamming the girl back against the rocks. It understandably jarred the human, rousing a strangled gasp and a few kicks, but no real come to consciousness. 

“Daj!” Yaviel called, again startled by the sudden and irregular looking movements that the human girl made. “I can’t get this off of her!” The blood elf glanced over her shoulder toward the direction in which the troll had slunk off. She noted that he was low to the ground and making gravely crooning sounds.

“One minute,” he answered, the latter half of the word sounding abnormally round beneath the Zandali accent. “I be bandaging ‘da dog.” Within that amount of time, Ten’dajin slouched over to the supine human with a limping worg dawdling after him; a crisp new bandage hindered the animal from his right wither down to his forepaw. The troll’s deep-set yellowish eyes flickered between the girl and Yaviel. “What ya’ be wanting me ta’ do?” 

“Get this vest off her,” Yaviel huffed. “I can’t get the girl bathed until she’s out of this wretched gear!” 

Ten’dajin blinked, absorbing the request for a moment. Then he shrugged, setting about his given task casually. The male seemed nonplussed by the prospect of disrobing an unconscious girl, and Yaviel again wondered just what kind of troll was wondering around Stranglethorn beside her. Which led her to wonder about all trolls in general. Perhaps undressing unconscious girls was a normal thing for trolls…

This train of thought made Yavi uncomfortable, so she chose to ignore it and focus on the thin and precise knife, usually saved only for leatherworking projects, Ten’dajin removed from the pack attached to his middle thigh. After appraising the vest for half of a moment, the troll reached down and sliced through the supple hide of the shoulder-width straps against the girl’s upper body and the similarly thick leather holds just above her hips. Yaviel suppressed the desire to smash her forehead into a nearby rock. Of course the vest wouldn’t come apart with the reinforced straps still together. 

Stupid.

Without a second’s hesitation or a jarring tug at the girl, Daj unceremoniously peeled the front of the battered armor away from the worg’s master. It left her torso with a disgustingly wet squelching sound and an aggressive wave of foul odor. The blood elf wretched, crinkling her face into a wrinkled mask of revulsion. It was the same stench that had been wafting from the blue pile of decayed troll beside the human’s poorly camouflaged gear in the thorn bramble. However, this variant of the reek was unfortunately accompanied by the counterpoint of unwashed human after a long, long time in the jungle. Even Ten’dajin was powerfully affected by the wafting offense.

“Whoo-whee!” the troll shook his head back and forth, bone charms clanking and chiming. “She done be foul!”

Yaviel did not respond, as she had firmly clamped her hand over her mouth and nostrils. She did, however, open her eyes to see something more peculiar than the saccharine smell of rot on a living thing. There appeared to be some kind of goop pooled in the remains of the leather vest and the dips of the human’s flesh. Yaviel fell back on plain observation to try and rouse up some sort of knowledge about the remnants of whatever-it-was on the human’s skin. Alas, all she seemed to gather was additional places that had been covered in the rotten greenish-teal-blue slime.

“Hey?” Yavi honked. The blood elf’s voice was altered by the hand over her nose. It came out distinctly goose-like, and there was just no helping it. “Do you know of any humans that sweat green goo?”

Ten’dajin cocked his head to the side, looking a lot like the confused worg seated on his haunches just behind the troll’s right hip. Daj frowned deeply, the thick hide of his skin creasing beneath the weight of his expression. “No. I don’t believe I be knowing of any humans ‘dat be sweating green stink…’cept ‘dis one.”

Yaviel glanced over the human for a bit longer, entertaining thoughts about the causes of unnatural secretions. Ten’dajin was just as content to ponder. After a bit of time had passed without a possible culprit behind the goop appearing in the forefront of Yaviel’s mind, she shook her head. “We can think about it later. I can’t take too much more of this stench. Let’s get her washed and taken care of.”

And, oh. Did they wash that human.

Ten’dajin, ensnared by his prying nature, was forced to help tend the human girl in interest of figuring things out. He assisted Yaviel in undressing the girl completely, then removed unnecessary pieces of his own armor. Along with the newly unburdened elf, the troll waded waist-deep into the cool stream with the human buoyed on his forearms. When the first inch or so of freezing cold spring water nipped the girl’s back and bottom, she came to life screeching. 

Her eyes burst open and began to roll around like two coppers thrown down on the street. She scratched and slapped at the arms and chest of a statue-still Ten’dajin, screaming like a banshee all the while. Neither the troll nor the elf had time to process a reaction, as the human was awake for just a handful of painfully loud and quick seconds. She quickly fell limp once more, having adjusted to the frosty temperature and without the strength to remain conscious. 

A silent and wide-eyed stare was shared between the elf and the troll. They both looked rather dazed and disconcerted. Neither had known a human could sound so like a writhing creature from the Felwood. Ears still ringing, Yaviel glanced toward the shore and realized that Darcia had pinned the bandaged worg to the rocky bank. The sounds of their scuffle added to the cacophony of lunacy that was echoing through the little camp. The animal had probably headed toward them in response to his master’s shrieking. The resonance of her howls still bounced through some thick distant jungle air, though it had finally left Yaviel’s inner ear. 

“Let’s get this done,” Yavi started lathering a bar of soap; she once more focused on the task at hand. She was confident that Darcia had not caused any great harm to the wolf, but she was not absolutely sure that he would continue to refrain. “Before Darcia has to eat the worg to keep its teeth out of us.”

“He won’t be biting none.” Ten’dajin insisted his opinion, eyes focused on the deathly still exchange between the larger black lion and the submissive hobbled canine. “He just upset wit’ ‘da sounds she be making. Probably just be wanting to swim out and check on her.”

Yaviel scoffed, unconvinced. She knew that if such sounds ever left her body, Darcia would doubtlessly have to be physically stopped from shredding something.

Or more likely someone. 

Without further wasted time, the human was submerged. Ten’dajin was careful to keep her face open to the air. She remained mercifully silent and unconscious as the blood elf scrubbed every inch of her with suds and salves. Every now and then, Yavi commanded that Daj lift, lower, turn, or tilt the girl as needed for a proper scrubbing. After the cleansing was finished, the human was brought back to the beach and assessed. 

Upon their arrival, Darcia casually removed himself from the worg as though he’d been sitting in a perfectly comfortable position that no longer satisfied him. Asha, the poor creature, looked as though someone had gutted him out and tried to feed him his own liver. His molten golden gaze had cooled into a dull brown. It probed toward his waif of a master in forlorn woe. Wary of Darcia and Ten’dajin, the worg wriggled himself in beside the unconscious girl and stubbornly stayed directly in Yaviel’s way at the human’s right flank. Without the heart to demand that the dejected canine be removed, the blood elf chose to work around him at her own inconvenience. 

First thing, Yaviel insisted Daj support the human’s neck in an upright position as she tugged tangles out of her lengthy, freshly clean, thick hair. After nearly a quarter of an hour with dusk moving in on the jungle, Yavi admitted defeat against the snarls that had migrated from the girl’s scalp to the lower section of hair. Several units of the ashen blonde locks were clumsily lopped off with the elf’s dagger in order to regain manageability. What had once doubtlessly rested against the small of the human’s back now hung just beneath her shoulders in mildly uneven sections.

After one more rinse in the cold water of the pooled stream, accompanied this time by Asha, salve and bandages were wrapped around the girl’s various bodily wounds. Her bruises, scrapes, and scabs were many. The gash across her lips, a tear in the anterior flesh of her shoulder, and the through-and-through twin lacerations in the meat of the human’s thigh were either too deep or too wide to simply bandage.

They needed stitching.

The pale, maimed, and exposed skin of the human girl-child made Yaviel uncomfortable. Fattened grubs of nervous tension writhed and gorged in the pit of her stomach somewhere above her hips and beneath her diaphragm. A bitter and metallic taste seemed to well in the corners of her mouth. Yavi had never considered herself particularly gifted in first aid or flesh mending. Oh, she was skilled enough to get by when only applying her efforts upon the likes of her cats and self. Sometimes Cara…but he so rarely needed her to bandage him. It seemed a null effort to approach the human’s injuries with the few memories Yaviel carried of patching-up her rogue.

Yavi also didn’t consider herself to be much of a seamstress. 

The elf pursed her lips, wetting them in an effort to dull the sharp savor of slowly growing anxiety. She procrastinated the next step by studying the freckles that speckled the human’s hide from the tops of her feet to the tips of her ears.

There was a pattern to the soft tawny dots. There was a flow to them. Obviously, freckles were created by exposure to the sun. Any skin that was regularly caressed by the sky’s warmth dotted up upon resisting the heated glare. The flecks concentrated beneath the girl’s eyes on her cheeks and across her nose, with a few here and there on her chin and forehead. The round tips of her stubby ears were nearly completely browned by the firm collection of marks that had gathered there. The human’s shoulders too, where discoloration from bruising or scabbing was not, sported circular patterns of specks a few shades darker than the human’s natural paleness. They carried down to her forearms well, but abandoned her hands with the exception of her left thumb. One tiny and seemingly introverted freckle sat brazenly on the inside corner beside the girl’s nail bed. It would have seemed lonesome…but it just looked so perfect there. A small and simple little round rebellion of melatonin against the remarkably pale and rosy flesh. 

Yaviel knew that staring at inconsequential features wasn’t going to heal the girl any faster…but she really wasn’t looking forward to dealing with the coming mending of flesh. The elf sighed, glancing over at Ten’dajin, who was grinning toothsomely at the worg. She watched as the troll batted the dog a few times, earning a plaintive whine as of a younger sibling threatening to tattle. The troll struck again, but instead of a soft whack to the canine’s uninjured shoulder, Daj allowed his hand to stay planted in Asha’s wet fur. He was trying to comfort the creature, in his brusque way. 

Another sigh passed Yaviel’s lips as her cheeks puffed with the contained expulsion of breath. The insects worming in her belly heaved and doubled, still gnawing away at her insides. “Hey?” she mumbled, luminous green eyes checking over the human’s injuries once more. The troll grunted an acknowledgement. “Do you think that the same spell I use to mend my pets could help the human’s wounds? Some of them need more than bandaging.”

The troll hummed, continuing to pet at Asha’s dense coat. “I don’t really be seeing why not. It should close up at least part ah’ her hurts ‘dat be running real deep.”

Yaviel stole comfort from the steady and lyrical rhythm of her companion’s tones. His “r’s” rolled softly in a curved and wide sort of way. Zandali’s sounds were pleasant to hear, even if the language they were speaking was the guttural Orcish of the Horde. Willfully denying the mass of squirming nerves within her, Yaviel stood to retrieve Ten’dajin’s nearby leatherworking kit. The flesh needed to be held in the correct way before it was mended. If it mended.


	4. Entirely Immoral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thanks to FleshDust and NaZWin for their Kudos and bookmarks on this story!!! I really appreciate it.

The mending spell that Yaviel usually employed toward her pets had done the human a great amount of good, though everything had to be performed by the light of a few spare candles. The gash across the girl’s lips had wilted from angry red splits to smooth and glossy pink lines kept straight by the little stitches that the blood elf had clumsily knit into her flesh. Likewise, the tear from the dip in the girl’s clavicle to the edge of her shoulder had sealed cleanly beneath the influence of Yaviel’s spellwork. The sutures were carefully sliced and plucked from the mildly swollen areas of healing without further incident.

By the Sunwell’s grace, the human remained completely unconscious for the whole of the stitching and healing. Not one peep of discomfort escaped her precariously stitched lips. Yaviel would forever be grateful for the weight of her unconsciousness. If she’d stirred and opened her mouth to give even one sound of pain, the flesh would have given to the firm stitching that had run a bit too deep.

Much of the bruising and swelling around the whole of the girl had diminished as well. Whatever flesh of the human Yavi caressed with the easing green glow of the mending spell had rebounded with a bit of plumpness and ruddy flush. The bleak anemia in her complexion had all but gone and only a mild feeling of fever remained about the girl’s temples. All in all, Yaviel was feeling pretty damn proud of herself. She could have been fully enjoying the lurking onslaught of lazy victory, if not for the gouges in the human’s right thigh. Unfortunately, the two deepest wounds seemed completely immune to the effects of Yaviel’s spell, and she was unable to continue examining them.

The light of day had fizzled along with the bulk of Yaviel’s limited magic reserves, and the nights of Stranglethorn Vale weren’t merely composed of darkness. They were a mucous overlay of smells, shadows, and non-directional sounds dulled and paradoxically reverberated within the drenching humidity of the land. Candles did little to fend away the thickness of Stranglethorn nights. Haphazardly, relying heavily on the aid of her superior night vision, Yaviel stuffed clean bandages and peacebloom salve into the lacerations on the human’s thigh before wrapping the circumference of the affected area in mageweave cloth. Wiping sweat from her brow and resting on her haunches, Yaviel decided that she was finished with playing priest. For now, she would focus on trying to amass a comfortable place for the human to rest.

After wriggling the girl into a long-sleeved linen shirt and a pair of cotton shorts with only a few swears spit at the awkward kerfuffle of dressing the unconscious, Yavi picked through the furs that Daj had carefully tanned for some of his more expensive projects. Selecting only the softest remnants of jungle cats, Yaviel slapped together a makeshift of cot. The human, looking ragged and skeletal within the loose fitting clothing, was settled upon the furs with little difficulty.

The poor thing was still shivering. Yaviel assumed that the tropical heat had long since wiped away the nippy chill left from their dip in the spring. This meant that the fever in the girl was perhaps not as mild as Yavi’d thought. Knowing better than to overheat her, but still wanting to offer some comfort, the blood elf shrouded the prone girl in a thin linen sheet usually reserved for drying after baths.

Slumping onto her bottom with the brightest candle in her hand the moment after the human girl was neatly tucked into the sheet and furs, Yaviel recognized that her labors as a caretaker were done for the time being. Her eyes dried abruptly, as though a stray breeze had hit them. The glazed feeling carried on after the blood elf blinked, and she realized that the culprit behind her lack of visual focus was sudden boredom crashing over her mind in the complete lull of activity. Yavi looked over the shape of the veiled human, brushstrokes of opaque dimness now hiding much of her physicality. Yaviel was no longer really seeing with her gaze, merely occupying her tired eyes.

Darcia, ever watchful and mindful to be out of the way, stole a moment to stroll behind Yaviel and brush against her back. As the warm pressure of the pet’s body pressed against the hunter, she pressed back; this caused her to bob slightly backward when the large black lion had moved too far passed to support the weight of her torso.

The troll grumbled something, lugging Yaviel’s dulled attention toward the blazing fire pit. She hadn’t entirely heard what he’d said, but she knew from the expression on his face that he wasn’t happy. His frown was tucked all the way back into the corners of his mouth. Those back edges had calloused and curved around the base of his heavy tusks. Those tusks and callouses initially seemed to make Daj’s frowns seem more severe, but Yaviel knew better by now. It was a childish sort of frown that spoke more of pouting than sadness.

The utter tangibility of Stranglethorn shadows tugged at some of Yaviel’s consideration. The darkness here always managed to catch her attention and cause a novel wave of awe, despite the nightly occurrence of her bewilderment. The fire cast a coppery yellowed sheen that swept in a surprisingly elegant manner over the craggy peaks of Ten’dajin’s facial features. The sharpness of his nose and cheekbones in formation with the slope of his forehead and long chin were all further accentuated by the contrasting inky blackness that welled in the lulls of the structure beneath his countenance. Those small pools of darkness managed to form a striking amount of depth. Even upon a face entirely caressed by the light of steady flames, the jungle’s shadows seemed to pulse with a marine-like tide.

Pulling focus back to discerning what Daj had mumbled in her general direction, Yaviel recalled that she’d heard hints of some Zandali profanity as well as something about being displeased with having to share crafting furs. Yavi absentmindedly noted that Asha the worg was asleep at the feet of the troll before she snorted loudly. The blood elf whooped a few of the profane sayings that Ten’dajin had foolishly mentioned early in her Zandali lessons toward his cozy place by the fire.

A loud gasp was his response, followed by the ever present clinks of Daj’s charms as his head snapped in her direction. On his face, absolute scandal was written along with feign shock. Another of his spikey grins drew the edges of his mouth back enough to expose a portion of his dusky pink colored gums.

“Ya’ don’t even know what ya’ just said!” he jabbed an accusatory finger at the blood elf from the other side of the camp. The rich tones of his voice resonated with the play shown in his smile.

“I know it was something about the smell of a lizard’s pubic hair and sex-crazed raptors.”

A booming cadence of laughter erupted from the troll, startling the previously sleeping dog and what seemed to be a nearby flock of parrots. “Alright,” Ten’dajin conceded. “Ya’ maybe be knowing more ‘dan I thought.”

The conversation was smothered beneath the comfortable silence of companionship. With a pat to the drowsy worg’s head and scratch at Zwazo’s flank, Ten’dajin dove wrist deep back into an order from the members of the Grom’gol staff.

Dry and itchy boredom once more began to crawl over the elf in an excruciatingly slow manner. The excitement of the last few hours had left Yaviel feeling fickle toward her choice of activity. She didn’t want to offer help in the leatherworking project, as she had for the past few nights. The relatively generous cut of profit Daj was already prepared to give her excused further damage to her tired eyes and punctured fingertips. Yaviel sighed loudly in reaction to her lack of forward progress toward occupation. The vocalization drew a momentary sidelong glance from the troll. The elf didn’t notice Ten’dajin’s questioning look, and so began to silently list possible sources of entertainment once more. Archeology documentation was all caught up for both herself and her companion. She had also just finished a summary letter to Carandole. Rereading the only recreational book she’d brought along for the fourth time did not appeal, nor did the elf have even the faintest desire to glance through any of Ten’dajin’s index-like journals of wildlife and beast-keeping. A shudder rippled through Yaviel’s shoulders and spine as she remembered the methodical wording, color coding, and separate font for each family, genes, and species.

Not a drip nor dribble of poetry to be found in that troll’s soul. Not one.

A few chirps from Zwazo brought Yaviel’s desperately seeking attention to the shuffling movements of the canine as he rose to his feet with a sore lean toward his good leg. Acting as though he’d spent his entire furry life with the Horde hunters and pets surrounding him, the animal nonchalantly fumbled over to his master and laid down at her favored left side. He squirmed about in a dissatisfied way until his feet were spread wide and his head was pillowed atop the human’s hip. When his positioning was just so, he let a content sigh seep from his muzzle as his gloriously pigmented eyes drifted lazily closed.

The elf’s own rather fantastically pigmented eyes, while searching out some movement besides the steady push and pull of Ten’dajin’s needle, stumbled upon the hastily tossed bags she’d hauled out of the bramble. The itching of boredom fermented into pins of curiosity that prickled from the top of Yaviel’s head down through her arms to her fingertips. She peeked at the sleeping girl. It didn’t seem entirely immoral to glance through the human’s gear. There could be something useful as to the girl’s identity.

Or a book Yaviel hadn’t read.

The blood elf scooched, still seated fully on her backside, over to the pile of gear. There were five bags in total. A patchwork leather backpack, with more pockets than stitching, was stuffed to bursting and heavier than the corpse of a hydra. Yavi wanted to save that bag for last. She’d start with the smallest and work her way up. The prospect of learning something about the overly sentient creature she’d decided to tame purged the ever scratchy tedium from the elf’s mind and body. In their stead was the buzzy ebb and flow of one’s curiosity being indulged.

A brachial pouch, meant to be carried on the upper arm, was first to be poked through. It seemed only to hold the girl’s currency. Separate little leather pockets of golds, silvers, and coppers were neatly organized. The child seemed to be rather prosperous, as far as money went. Pondering this fact made Yavi wonder about the girl’s family. Perhaps she came from money? The currency pockets were accompanied by thick roll of parchment that was held together with a thin leather strip. Upon inspection, Yaviel realized that she was holding a roll of sale’s slips. The first layer were in Darnassian, the second was clearly written in Common, and the third appeared to be runes. It took Yaviel a few moments to place the oddly pictorial calligraphy as Dwarven.

Interesting.

The next to be examined was a tote meant to attach to one’s belt and rest against the hip and back. After fiddling with its buckles and pulling the flap up, Yavi quickly realized that it was a leatherworker’s kit. Much like Ten’dajin’s, it was filled with all types of needles, threads, dyes, and deathly sharp little precision cutting tools set beside small bottles of tanning agents and acids to help break down the dermal layers that were unwanted in the production of leather goods.

“Hey, Daj!” Yaviel twittered, feeling effervescently excited by the new knowledge pertaining her to human. “The girl’s a leatherworker.”

“Oh?” the troll groused, looking up from his work and over toward the shrouded human form. “Why don’t I just go ahead and write a letter to War Chief, himself. Anyone’d be thrilled to know ‘dat humans be having hunters ‘dat are leatherworkers.”

A dense scowl migrated over Yaviel’s face as the bubbles of her sudden and fleeting joy were popped by the sour comments of her friend. “Never mind me trying to include you then…” the definitive sulk was spoken mostly to herself.

Daj gave a breathy tut of a chuckle and shook his head as though he had somehow become the adult of the pair. Yavi didn’t like it. She grabbed a nearby rock and pitched it at her friend with a precise flick of her wrist. It deftly struck the rounded side of his tusk closest her with a reverberating crack. She’d aimed perfectly as always, Stranglethorn darkness or no, and hit the overly developed tooth right in a hairline fracture that curled from the underside.

“Ee-yah!” Ten’dajin dropped the current piece of work in his hands to reach into his mouth and rub at the base of the aching ivory protruding from his gums. “That was not kind, Cat Elf!” He glared over toward Yaviel, child-like pout adorning his face once more.

The troll then looked over to Zwazo and exaggerated his expression as though he’d somehow found pity to be in the raptor’s face. Ten’dajin dropped his voice and rounded his syllables so set in the accent of Zandali that Yavi wasn’t sure that he meant to be speaking Orcish. “That is not a kind Cat Elf.” He pointed rudely at her before again picking up his leatherworking.

She grinned, any possible guilt at taking advantage of a previous injury rolling off of her shoulders like water on duck’s feathers.

Setting the kitbag aside and reaching for a flamboyantly purple linen saddlebag, Yavi found its boon to be bundles of tanned leathers in varying qualities. More bottles of agents, dyes, and acids were arranged within its fabric folds alongside a leather roll containing proper skinning tools. The fourth bag, made of green linen, had belts to wrap around one’s waist. It was easily identified as an herbalism pouch before Yavi even opened it, but she took a peep regardless. Within was a surplus of wilting kingsblood blooms and silt covered liferoot tubers.

Boring.

Yaviel tucked the four smaller bags back into the nook of foliage in which she had previously placed them before extending her arm and dragging the insanely heavy backpack into her cross-legged lap. Smiling with anticipation and ignoring the distress in her legs beneath the gargantuan weight anchored upon them, Yavi tugged the flap of the backpack open. The first things to be seen were a dry water skin and an empty food pouch. However, rather than the remnants of a food product, curiously radiant blue fibers remained about the inside of the bag. Cautiously, the blood elf held the opening of the food pouch to her nose.

Yavi quirked her left brow with an unimpressed pursing of lips. It really didn’t smell like much of anything inside the little paper pouch. She moved on.

Scraps of spare clothing that had been sacrificed to hard use and the creation of bandages littered the inside of the pack. Between the leavings of cloth, Yaviel discovered and removed a larger oil skin, a disassembled fishing rod, a box for tackle and line, a kit of foraging utensils that included a heavy silver spade, a small case that held oddly Kal’dorei type jewelry, a collection of various sharpening stones that added most to the unholy weight of the rucksack, as well as a curiously crafted box.

The sturdy structure of the small chest clearly spoke of a wooden construction, yet as Yaviel brushed the outer surface she recognized the distinctive feel of well oiled leather. A rubbery seal was stuffed along the box’s seams and between the delicate hinges on the back. It was a water-tight chest, and it was small enough to fit into a pack. It didn’t feel overly heavy, though it was weighted with contents that didn’t jingle, jiggle, or shake. How delightfully interesting?!

A beaming smile lifted Yaviel’s expression as she fidgeted her way into the box. The distinctly metallic smell of ink juxtaposed against the mellow scent of old parchment as the lid to the chest creaked open. Neatly organized in piles tied by thin leather strips were letters. Arranged in standing position, their thin bottoms and the wide panel of their neighbors’ front kept them upright. A hundred letters. Two hundred. Maybe more? Yaviel wasn’t sure. A moment went by in which Yavi warred with the morality of peeping through someone’s private letters.

Just one moment.

Assuming from the organized nature of everything she’d seen of her human’s so far, Yaviel reached for the letter on the furthest left. Its envelope had seen much traffic. The secretions of fingertips had stained and wilted the strength of the paper lip. Yaviel was careful as she removed the document within. It was written in Common, and she felt lucky. The blood elf could passably speak Common. Reading it may be a bit slow at first, but she was more than capable.

_Dear Abby_

Yavi blinked, glancing at the girl. Abby, huh? She wrinkled her nose. It didn’t seem like much of a fit, in her opinion.

_Obviously, I found the hastily written note that you left on the table. You misspelled the word “journey.”_

Yaviel paused again to furrow her brow and decide that the girl was most definitely from money.

_To Darnassus then? Only just a run through Stormwind City, with not the time to stop and see me before leaving the Eastern Kingdoms?_  
_Such actions befit your impetuous nature perfectly._  
_I hope you enjoy your long ride on a ship over the open ocean. As I remember, you’ve only taken one ride on a boat of any sort. You became violently ill on that tiny little canoe you stole from the stablemaster. Perhaps a year of on-and-off training in the wilds has offered you a buff against that aversion to water you developed after nearly drowning in the creek. That shallow, sun-kissed, creek._  
_You are doubtlessly prepared to deal with the trials of a cross-sea voyage._

The sarcasm of the narrator was so dry that is sucked the entire volume out of the rueful chuckle in Yaviel’s throat.

_It’s strange. Though you’re nearly gone from the entire continent beneath me, I feel as though you’re still here. Your mess certainly is. I had not the vaguest idea until you were gone just how many things belonging to you litter this house._   
_Your pup here is a bother. She’s been a nervous wreck since you’ve left. Perhaps it is age that keeps her from Asha’s calm, but I don’t ever recall the worg beast behaving in such a manner when he was a yearling cub. Regardless, Bea is a problem. I know you took great care when training her to look after me. You went so far as to drag the lazy thing along on your jaunts through the woods to teach her the scent of predators to be warded away from the house. Alas, there has been no warding. All she does now is pace, bury her head in the dirty clothes you left on your floor, and whine._   
_The neurotic pup won’t sleep or eat. She’s more like you than I really care to enjoy. Being left with my chickens, servants, and the barn cat would have been plenty to keep me company._   
_Back to thoughts of Darnassus. It has been many years since I was in the land of the Kal’dorei. However, I do remember what type of land you are to be in, and I know you will enjoy it very much. Please watch yourself, my impulsive little imp. You get so caught up in staring at nothing that you’re likely to stumble right off the edge of Teldrassil. And you need more sleep. And food. Eat more food and sleep more. I know that the temperature there is pleasant at first, seeming only too cool in the evening and the early morn. But when the rains come, you could be chilled to your death. Make fires and eat more food._   
_Despite all of the books you’ve read about the area, the flora and fauna will be unlike the pictures in those dusty tombs on my shelves. Trust Asha to know. His nose, ears, and instincts are better than any of the secondhand knowledge you’ve gleaned._   
_Night Elves are kind…but the tree of every race bares fruit that spoils._

Yaviel was not only glad to know that she and Ten’dajin had been using the proper name for the worg, but she greatly appreciated that analogy. It seemed just the right way to put into words her own ideas about separate races.

_I know that you will guard your trust wisely when it comes to peoples of all sorts and shapes. A clouding desire for comradery has never been a weakness to you. Yet, far from home and entirely surrounded by those of a foreign race, you may find yourself seeking a companion amongst the unfamiliar faces. Be mindful. Please, use your brain._  
_I’ve sent along quite a bit of jerky. You’ll need the protein in emergencies, and I can’t bake for shit._

The chortle that erupted from Yaviel’s nose drew Daj’s attention. She did not look up from the letter to realize that it had done so.

_Don’t eat it unless you have absolutely no other food. Do you understand? You damn well better understand me, Girl-Cub. Emergencies. I know that the color may seem…off……in the marbling of the meat. Don’t worry. I promise you, it is supposed to be that way. The jerky is for you, not Asha._  
_If I find out (Oh, and I WILL find out) that you feed a single piece of this jerky to the mutt, you will wish to find yourself exposed on Hellfire Peninsula with not a single weapon or scrap of clothing on your girlish shred of a body when compared to the things I’ll do when I have you returned to my clutches. I sacrificed two satyrs and the bastard son of Illidan Stormrage to get that jerky._

An unapologetic bark of laughter escaped the blood elf, and she decided to abandon her sour beginnings of an opinion about the author of this letter. This… (Yavi glanced at the address on the envelope) Marnicelia was pretty damned funny.

_DO NOT FEED IT TO AHSA._  
_That is all from home. Keep your senses sharp, your wit intact, and your bow arm steady. Always carry the knife I’ve given you, and never remove the charm I’ve made. Don’t forget to eat, or your hunger will bite you in the ass._  
_That pun was more than intended._  
_I love you and the mutt,_  
_Gran_

A crotchety old woman writing after her young adventurer of a granddaughter. It certainly sounded like the makings of a novel. Yaviel grinned as she folded the letter and delicately tucked the document and envelope back into their places. With no hesitation, she snatched up the next letter only to realize that the sending and receiving addresses had been flipped. Abby was the sender and Marnicelia the intended audience. This puzzled the elf.

What would the girl be doing with a letter that she herself had written? Had it never been sent? That couldn’t be the case. Yaviel saw postage stamps from both Darnassus and Stormwind. The letter had obviously traveled far. Perhaps this human was not Abby? Yaviel looked over to see the worg that had been readily responding to the name Asha with his head pillowed against his master who, according to the letter, was to be called Abby.

Yaviel frowned.

The human could very well be Abby. Upon traveling back to the Eastern Kingdoms, before making her way down to Stranglethorn, she could have simply stopped to visit her grandmother and picked up the letters as keepsakes…

This satisfied, and so Yaviel continued on to read Abby’s letter.

_Dear Gran,_  
_What in the hell did you do to that jerky? It’s BLUE!_

A probing and suspicious glance was sent toward the food bag containing curious blue fibers as the elf noted that the letters indeed seemed sequential to one another.

_Not just in the fat, but in the meat. Did you think that I wouldn’t realize that it was blue?_  
_I gave Asha one little piece and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. He completely lost it! The worg dug himself a burrow, hid there for nearly an hour, then burst out and started sprinting all over the place. He scratched the columns and flooring of the inn to hell. Then he climbed on top of the inn, Gran. My Asha tore apart a nightsaber cub, climbed up a massive tree with its corpse, scrambled onto the top of an inn, and started tearing huge shingles off of the roof._

Yaviel paused to appraise the slumbering canine in a new light. He truly did not seem the type for such shenanigans.

_Three whole hours after the one little piece, his heart was still beating so fast that I was afraid it would pop right out of his chest._  
_I fed some each to a Kal’dorei monk (who has taken to petulantly trailing after me) as well as a saber…the outcome was very similar for both of them._  
_I know that you did something to it. It smells like your magic, and it feels as cold as snow. What is going on with it? What sort of stimulant is it? I am NOT eating it._

Yavi again looked toward the empty foodstuff package.

_What would be a safe way to dispose of it? I’ve tried to think of a way…but selling it seems immoral, as does simply tossing it or burying it in the ground. The amount of laced blue ‘jerky’ that you sent me could completely warp the plants and animals in a given area. I don’t even want to imagine what could become of a webwood after a few pieces of this stuff…_  
_Thoughts aside from the manic inducing jerky, sailing over the ocean was dreadful. I don’t think that I’ve ever been so ill in all my life. And for weeks I was ill, Gran. Even when the bulk of my sickness was gone, I was still only semi functioning. I think I left half of me on that ship, along with the sewing kit from Mrs. Delaney. It wasn’t anything but a sentimental setback, but a setback all the same. It’s already be handled though. I worked out a deal with the local leatherworker. I skinned and tanned hides for him in order to pay for a new kit._  
_He said that he knew you, and that he wished you health in body and mind. His name was Rhovanian Wiltbough, if you don’t recall a specific Night Elven male leatherworker from your youth. He and his son are being very kind to me, and allowing me and the monk to stay with them after Asha’s attack on her roof upset the local inn keeper._  
_His son is handsome…for a somebody with purple skin and a beard as blue as the jerky you sent._

Yavi had to stop herself from waggling her eyebrows. She sent a wry peek toward her sleeping human girl child. So young.

_I like it here, Gran. The twilit glow of the forest day, and the rainy, chilly nights are the sort of weather I always found myself wishing for during our long summers. The trees, flowers, animals, and lagoons are just as you said: so much more beautiful and majestic than any of my reading promised…_  
_I do like it, but it isn’t home, Gran._  
_I long for the woods near our house, even knowing that they’re being scorched under a typical summer heatwave. I want to brush my hand over a rock or stump that isn’t covered in moss. I want to pick the ripening moonberry bushes and eat their fruit while the skin and juices are still warm from the sun. I want to smell the flowering kingsblood near the kitchen window, and play chess with you after supper. I want to roll in the mud with Bea, and comfort Asha with a seat at the table with us because he’s grown so jealous of the attention that I pay the puppy._  
_Finally, (this feels so silly and childish, but it is what I feel more strongly than anything) in a desire that leaves me raw and tearful and achingly barren, I want to hear you reading me the old story book on your shelf. The one near your bed that neither of us have touched since I was a tiny girl._  
_Thinking of it now leaves a hollow echo of your voice whispering about my ears, and I hurt._  
_I understand that I am homesick, and that nothing can be done with the exception of allowing it to pass. Unfortunately, understanding that there is nothing I can do often leaves me left with hugging your letter and weeping. I’ve wept more in the last three months than I have in nearly all of my life._  
_I miss you, Gran. So much. It was foolish to leave without waiting for a formal goodbye…but I was SO eager. I am sorry._

_With more love than I can bare,_  
_Abby_

Yaviel blinked, a small shake to her head. Such a baby. Just a child. The elf’s luminous green eyes swept over the shivering human girl. She was so very young.


	5. He Was Being a Woman

Yaviel yawned loudly, wiping away a burningly brackish tear that had welled in the corner of her sore eye. Two hundred and forty-four. The elf had read all two hundred and forty-four of her human’s letters. Some had been ten pages long while others were barely a few paragraphs. The blood elf’s body and mind ached for rest, but she could not stop. It was as though something was compelling her. An engrained, yet foreign desire to completely understand her human, to somehow become more aware of her existence and being, pressed Yaviel forward through the groundswells of fatigue. 

The letters had varied in language from Common to Darnassian, but that did not slow the elf. She’d simply lit another candle and plowed clumsily through the language of the Kal’dorei. Abby’s letters had disappeared from the collection, leaving mournfully irksome gaps in the sequence of understanding; but even that did nothing to stop Yaviel. The aforementioned night elven monk had become a staple character, even an author, known simply as Elm. Her letters reeked of ale and peculiar herbs, but Yaviel read on. She greedily devoured the words upon each and every page.

They all weaved together, the words. They presented an impression of her human that Yaviel accepted as accurate. Stories, personal thoughts, and raw information had amalgamated into the captivating sort of narrative flow that Yaviel had been seeking in the blanket of the night. If she were being entirely honest with herself, it was more than she’d been craving. More than she had ever received from any other book she’d ever read. 

These characters, whose dialogues filled her head and emotions tugged at her heartstrings, were real. Yaviel could see, touch, and eventually speak with one of them. Maybe all of them! This enthralling concept of living narrative and the pull of her human’s strange foreign familiarity had caused the blood elf to slowly drift toward the sleeping girl. Completely unaware of her migration, Yaviel subconsciously brought the whole caboodle of candles, letters, and gear along with her until her lower back and part of her rump rested against the leg of her human. 

Elm, the odd creature, found some mysterious way to become an essential fixture in Abby’s small world. The Kal’dorei brewmaster had somehow even joined along the human’s journey. They’d spent the majority of the last three years traveling, sleeping, drinking homemade brew, eating, and laughing together. Somehow, the two found a way to complement one another perfectly; though Yaviel was still confused by their seeming lack of similar thought pattern. The young monk rose and retreated like the tide of the sea. Sometimes she was exuberant and wild, other times contemplative and serene. Abby was just the opposite. Yavi’s human girl put great effort into appearing objective and steadfast, though she was clearly tenderhearted. It had bewildered the blood elf that the two females continued traveling with one another despite a marked tendency for bickering and miscommunications. Then, after a few months’ worth of documentation, Yaviel noticed a shift in the topics of Abby’s letters. The reasoning behind the fluidity in their friendship became clear. 

Both girls had mutually gained attributes that the other couldn’t have secured without their companionship. Elm had prodded Abby into displaying her affections toward something that was not an animal. She had peaked in the human an ability to see outside of herself and understand the comings and goings in the emotions of others. Likewise, Abby had offered the night elf an anchor. She presented a way to greater steadiness and desire for forward progress. Really, they had each greatly influenced the outlook and personality of the other. Frankly, it was pretty clear that Elm had made a bigger impact on Abby. 

The letters concerning correspondence between the two girls brought a beautifully false nostalgic feeling welling in the back of Yavi’s throat. It was like she had been right alongside them in their budding familial warmth and individual development of self. 

Abby, the sweet child, had grown so much during the sequence. Her mind turned from mournful homesickness to enthrallment with far off peoples, creatures, and even her own identity. Abby’s letters read like a cross between the story of a wide-eyed quietly charismatic narrator and the guides Yaviel wished Ten’dajin could write. Her human wrote with a descriptive elegance that brought forth the sights, scents, thoughts, and sentiments of the fascinations that she had experienced in the past three years. 

Three years’ worth of letters had been tucked into the box. Three years’ worth of education, trials, pain, endurance, affection, and friendship. Three years’ worth of her human’s life. 

Yaviel simply couldn’t stop herself. As the letters continued on without Abby’s fantastic descriptions and Elm’s strangely silly observations, the blood elf had found herself relying on the heavy sarcasm and wit of the grandmother human to fill in the blanks. Truly though, it was not much of a disappointment. Marnicelia had early in the night been ranked as Yaviel’s favorite of the authors. After concluding that Abby had been mothered by this Gran, Yavi inexplicably and rapidly seemed to develop a store of profound guiltless gratitude toward the old woman. It was as though the whirring cacophony of sentiment transmigrated into the blood elf via osmosis as each new understanding about Abby’s life and loved ones snapped together in her mind. Most powerful of these alien emotions were Yaviel’s reactions to Gran. 

Through her letters, the ostensibly ancient human displayed the sharp intellect, iron loyalty, gruff love, and wry humor that Yaviel hoped to embody in herself. The old woman was wonderful about providing an aged, wise counsel upon her granddaughter’s gushing and sensitive overtones. Whatever information was delivered from Marnicelia Silvertouch came with a stinging bark of laughter and the salve of an expanded world view. The things that she had written led Yaviel to rereading her scrawling calligraphy until every fact and quip had essentially been memorized.

“Oi! Cat Elf?” 

The barking call slowly pulled Yaviel’s tired, watery eyes away from her rereading. 

“Ya’ been up all ‘da night long?” Ten’dajin’s stare was filled with confusion, and his hairless overhanging left brow was quirked. 

The blood elf blinked slowly in a contemplative way, feeling somewhat dizzy and unlike herself. She glanced toward the jungle’s canopy to note that the pearlescent roseate shine of dawn had indeed begun to wreath the crowns of massive trees. Yaviel regarded the long ago finished letter in her lap, sluggishly absorbing the fact that she had sacrificed hours of sleep in favor of reading. The osmosis emotions faded to near nothingness as some of her own sputtered into action. Her pride suffered a mild twinge as she recalled having ridiculed her friend Agaruwen for just such a sacrifice not too long ago. 

“Crap…” Yavi monotoned as she tucked the letter back into its box. 

Daj sent his tut of a chuckle towards her. “Ya’ lose track ah ‘da time with ya’ snooping?” 

“I was not snooping!” the blood elf leapt to the defense of her actions with the grace and quickness of thought that belonged only to a creature in desperate need of sleep. “I was researching.”

“Mmh,” the troll gave an exaggerated nod of his head, smug with seeing his friend as bedraggled as she was before him. “Right, right. Of course ya’ were.” 

Though he was feeling rather amused, Ten’dajin also felt a bit of pity for poor Yavi. She could never do things by half, the Cat Elf. It was always all in or not at all. Having approached to observe her for signs of greater tension outside a lack of sleep, Daj felt his smugness and play evaporate. A tender swelling feeling, usually reserved only for his whelp of a sister, replaced what had been teasing intent. 

Needle pricks and ink stains were accompanied by several angry paper cuts on Yavi’s fingertips. Her peachy tanned flesh was looking sallow where the sunrise glow had always tended to seep into the blood elf’s skin and make her complexion ruddy with health. Dusky dark bags drooped beneath his friend’s stare, and a thin layer of clammy sweat across her brow led Ten’dajin to suspect that she may be headed toward sickness. A deep sag in her back and shoulders bowed her typically languid feline stillness. A similar lag in the hold of her mouth left an unfamiliar gaping frown where silly sassy grins and sharp smiles belonged. Even Yaviel’s ears appeared wilted, limp in an arc where they were apt to be kept straight and alert. Last night’s great expenditure of magic had dulled the green shine in Yaviel’s gaze, allowing just the barest hint of irises that may have once been blue to pierce the skin of fel glazed green that covered even the whites of her eyes. A gloomy half-lidded stare obscured her near constantly present sanguine curiosity. 

Something else too, something the Ten’dajin couldn’t quite see, was amiss within his friend. He took it that the Cat Elf had done too much in interest of the human. She had further damaged herself in last night’s lack of sleep. Daj clicked his teeth together a few times as he wondered at the sudden bubble of worry that popped in the base of his throat, leaving a bitter taste creeping up to the back of his tongue. 

Using a mending spell on the human perhaps weighed greatly on Yaviel. It could have created a strange effect within the elf’s cognizance. Even now, with utter exhaustion seared into every ligament of her musculature, Yavi clearly had thoughts of the human before those of herself. Belongings of the human girl were carefully organized within easy reach for Yavi’s inspection. The sheet covering the human had been folded away from her face with her hair neatly arranged out of her eyes, indicating that Yaviel had continued to groom her at some point during the night. The human’s hand rested limply in Yaviel’s lap, suggesting that the elf had been holding it. All of this, along with the tender placement of Yavi’s weight against the human’s hip and injured thigh, suggested the content familiarity of affection. The nearness of Yaviel’s bow, its ready position, and her body’s slight tilt to face towards the weapon proposed that some part of the elf had been keeping vigilant guard. After another second’s thought, Ten’dajin decided the Cat Elf probably hadn’t even realized that she was on guard.

It was all just so peculiar. 

When Yaviel first wanted to tend the human, Daj had immediately read the intensions as a misplacement of her irritatingly copious and poorly repressed maternal desire. The blood elf’s repetitive utterance of the human being so young and her absolute stubbornness about taking up the girl supported his suspicions, as did Yaviel’s determinedness and sensitivity toward the injured being’s comfort. 

All of this thinking did little to remove the wallowing bitter scum now coating Ten’dajin’s mouth. The human didn’t already have the hunter’s connection that one receiving the benefits of a mending heal would have with its master. Forging such a connection with the sentience of a human was said to be impossible, but Daj had to speculate… 

Yaviel had unconsciously been overemphasizing her emotions toward the girl as an out for her own suppressions. The backlash of a spell being practiced incorrectly could manifest in all kinds of ways. Could it be that Yaviel’s initially petty investment in the human had rapidly deepened after the mending took? Usually, healing up a couple rips and tears in the flesh of one’s pet required just a dusting of magic. This had nearly drained Yaviel (an elf, no less) completely dry. 

Ten’dajin felt when his acrimonious tastes of worry turned to solid lumps of trepidation. Some sort of bond, though likely not that of hunter and pet, very well could have formed between the human and the blood elf. 

Yaviel had greatly needed a night’s worth of rest after her efforts. She had also declined supper when he’d offered it not too long before tucking into his own slumber. He deeply regretted his callous dismissal of Yaviel’s delight and intrigue with the human. 

Forcibly shoving aside his mind’s heavy and forward stress, the troll focused on cultivating the hope that he was overthinking Yaviel’s uncharacteristic lack of vigor. He knew that mentioning his wonderings about some sort of mending bond would be both impractical and mildly inappropriate. Ten’dajin had, after all, been the one to say he didn’t see why the mending spell would be a bad idea. In addition to guilt keeping his mouth shut, knowledge that it was not his place to appraise and critique the elf’s deeds kept him quiet. It was clearly written in their friendship that it was not his business to provide for her wellness. 

Stating his concerns would do nothing but offend his fiercely independent companion. She would read his opinions about her overly emotional and cathartic choices as criticism, no matter which way he phrased them. Daj could practically hear the clipped excuses and dismissal already. The troll’s next actions hinged on the faith that all his friend needed was some food, some sleep, and that he was being a woman about his worries. 

Ten’dajin squatted down, touching his chest to his knees as he reached out to tap at Yaviel’s temple in a deceptively condescending manner. She relocated her vacant attention up to him with a bit more of her usual spark exhibited by an irritable glare. Zwazo had maneuvered in beside him and dipped her front half until her face rested precisely even in elevation to her master’s. Her blank reptilian stare displayed nothing to Yaviel as it darted about superficially. Seeing nothing in the raptor’s eyes suddenly vexed the elf. Why was it that Daj was so convinced of her intelligence?

“Do ya’ think ‘da Cat Elf be in there somewhere, mah’ Zwazo?” Daj rumbled to his pet in the whisper of a conspirator, still staring straight into Yaviel’s eyes. He reached sideways to pat the other side of his raptor’s maw, knocking her head against his own; all the while, he peered with pretend wonder into Yaviel’s ever deepening and familiar scowl.

“Is there something that you needed, Daj?” Yaviel’s tone reverberated with the proper amount of lively snark. Her lips lost their fish-like position in favor of pursing together with impotent aggravation.

Ten’dajin grinned in his goofy toothsome way, happy to see Yaviel’s ears perk up. “How about ya’ give the researching and ya ’self a rest while I take ‘da beasties to snag some breakfast.”

“No,” Yaviel sighed, shaking her head. 

“Oh?” 

“No. I’ll go hunt something up. If I sleep now, I won’t sleep at all in the night. Archeology and a nocturnal schedule just don’t mix, and the whole reason we’re here is to finish up the dig. Plus, I need to move around some before my ass is permanently rooted to this spot. Some mischievous little sprouts were already trying to get fresh…” The joke was grunted as the elf hauled herself upright, allowing the human’s hand to drop onto the earth with a bounce. 

As both Horde hunters stood to discuss what needed gathering for the coming meal, neither noticed the human’s previously lifeless fingers brush along the dirt beneath their tips while slowly curling into a fist. Nor did they see calculated stillness overcome her breathing, as it does when one is disoriented after identifying the tones of an enemy’s language in the first few moments of awakening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A continued thank you to NaZWin! Your comments are my first, and I am so very honored.


	6. I Am Not a False Prophet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I promise.

So, I don't have a new chronological chapter to add. Sorry guys! It's been hard to work everything out between my school schedule and other pursuits. Right now, instead of a chapter, I have a smutty companion fic to offer up!!!! 

TRIBUTE FOR MY PEOPLE!

http://archiveofourown.org/works/6872371


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